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ISP News Archives for July 2012

BT has released its latest results to 30th June (Q2-2012), which saw their retail broadband ISP subscriber base add +85,000 new customers (down from +136k in Q1) to reach a total of 6,365,000. The operators superfast up to 80Mbps capable FTTC (BTInfinity) service also expanded to pass 11 million UK homes (up from 10m in Q1).

The internet access division of high street retailer John Lewis, which launched in April 2012 after taking on customers from Waitrose Broadband and Greenbee, has begun offering the first 6 months of broadband and calls absolutely free to new customers.

BT Retail informs ISPreview.co.uk that the super slow bug, which caused some BTInfinity superfast broadband (up to 38/78Mbps) subscribers with the ISPs HomeHub3 (HH3) router to experience sub-1Mbps speeds when using a wired/LAN connection (wifi was unaffected), is now being fixed with a new firmware update.

Mobile operator Three UK claims that the average monthly data consumption of its Mobile Broadband customers has effectively doubled from 450MB (MegaBytes) one year ago to 1.1GB (GigaBytes / 1100MB) today. They’ve even done a video to celebrate.

A new study of broadband performance across fifty of the country’s “most populated towns and cities” has revealed that the average UK broadband download speed grew by 16% to 7.84Mbps (up from 6.74Mbps in 2011). Meanwhile London tops the speed chart with an average of 13.262Mbps, while Norwich came last on 5.336Mbps.

BT has today launched a new offer that effectively includes its BTVision TV (IPTV) service for free alongside their broadband and calls bundle. The package, which would usually cost £17 a month, is for a limited time being reduced to just £13 (i.e. the £4 Vision Essentials element becomes free).

National UK cable operator Virgin Media has today released its latest quarterly results (Q2-2012), which saw their broadband ISP subscriber base increase by just +4,000 in the quarter to total 4,385,600 (significantly down on the +30,500 added in Q1-2012 and +17,500 in Q4-2011). But what of a future 200Mbps product?

Several of the UK’s largest six ISPs, including Sky Broadband, Virgin Media and TalkTalk, have added more IP addresses to their controversial court ordered block of The Pirate Bay website. But the site, which was blocked for helping to facilitate internet piracy, has already responded by adding yet more addresses.

Ofcom, the UK communications regulator, has today unveiled its final proposal for the forthcoming auction of “4G” (Long Term Evolution) based superfast Mobile Broadband spectrum (800MHz and 2.6GHz). But sadly, due to constant bickering between operators, the first bids won’t take place until “early 2013“.

The Independent Networks Cooperative Association (INCA), which works to support the development of next generation internet access around the UK, has announced the forming of a new group of smaller ISPs that could challenge BT’s apparent dominance of the publicly funded superfast broadband roll-out. But is it too little, too late?

Consumer Focus has today confirmed that Golden Eye International, which holds copyrights for adult films and is linked to the UK’s Ben Dover brand, will shortly begin sending the first of 2,845 internet piracy claim letters to O2’s UK broadband customers. But this figure is much smaller than their original target.

The European Commission (EC), which recently announced tentative plans to allegedly support Net Neutrality (the principal of treating all internet traffic as equal) by imposing stiffer industry guidelines and delivering more “effective consumer choice“, has today launched a public consultation on the matter.

Network optimisation firm Riverbed Technology has predicted that almost two-thirds of UK inhabitants will watch this summer’s London 2012 Olympic Games online and, according to their OnePoll study, the Men’s 100m Sprint Final is set to be the most popular event among 55% of respondents. But what about Women’s beach volleyball?

The B4RN (Broadband 4 Rural North) project, which is working to link thousands of rural homes in north Lancashire UK via a new non-profit and community built fibre optic (FTTH) broadband network, has now started to install its infrastructure into local premises and could go live “in the next few weeks“.

The results from 529 respondents to our latest monthly survey has revealed that the majority (74.8%) continue to find UK ISP promotions of broadband speed to be misleading and just over half (57.6%) aren’t familiar with the related Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) guidelines. But are tougher rules the answer?

BT has shocked customers by announcing the closure of its old personal Web Hosting service “within the next few months … because of [the] increased costs in running it“. The service was typically supplied alongside new dialup and broadband accounts.